I am back from a wonderful weekend at the Cave Gladium, where I had a thoroughly nice time offering "home-shopping" to lots and lots of different groups in their camp. It was a different way to meet people and get them to know the things I offer (including workshops and courses), and I spent quite some (really enjoyable time) chatting about textiles, techniques, the valueing of textile crafts (and other crafts), and other things.

What really blew my mind was the hospitality I also received - offers of a place in the shade to take a rest, offers of drink, offers of food. It made me feel really welcome and really appreciated, and especially the offers of drink kept me watered enough to be well and happy in the heat. And hot it was - beautiful, hot, dry summer weather with blue skies, almost no clouds, just a very slight breeze from time to time and high temperatures from early morning to late at night. I tackled the heat by moving very, very slowly (assisted by a slightly hurting foot, partly thanks to an unextinguished cigarette end lying on the ground in my path, happily smoldering away) and accepting almost every offer of drink and shade.

It was a lovely working weekend, and will not be the last time I shoulder my "Kiepe" (a carrying basket to wear on your back) and take a walk!

Brought to you, via myself, from Beatrix Nutz of the Lengberg Bra Fame:

The Department of Medieval and Post-Medieval Archaeology, Leopold-Franzens-University Innsbruck, together with the Urban Archaeology Hall in collaboration with the Seminar of Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology of the Georg-August-University Göttingen cordially invite to the third Postgraduate Conference on Medieval Archaeology (PCMA) in Austria.
This meeting will be held from March 28-30, 2014 in Hasegg Castle in the historic town Hall in Tirol.

There is no conference fee beyond the expenses for visiting museums, exhibitions, and staying at Tirol. Deadline for registration, with or without paper, is January 15, 2014. You can find more information about the event on their webpage, which also lists the contact addresses to send your abstract and title.

Sadly, I'm too old for this stuff (being no postgrad anymore), but it does sound nice and interesting - and one of its aims is to build bridges between archaeologists in the East and the West, and that is always a brilliant idea.

A little bit of last-minute packing and organising, then I'll stuff all the things into the car and will be on my way to Cave Gladium. It's the first time since ages that I go to an event without my own stall or tent, and the first time since even more ages that I will offer a kind of mobile services. (Actually, it's the first try of doing the mobile salesperson for me - back in my very beginnings in going to medieval events, I'd sing together with a friend, wandering around the place.)

So I'm quite excited, and not at all sure how it will work out, and whether it will work well or okay or not-at-all, and a little anxious too. Which is... sort of nice, as it has the feel of doing something entirely new. And as we all know, something new now and then is good for us!

I'm not fully back yet, brain-wise, or so it seems - the usual morning routine has yet to re-establish itself. The list of emails has shrunk much, though, and the list of to-do items has grown, so that is normal-ish again.

This weekend is the Cave Gladium, a medieval market/event in Furth im Wald. A few years ago, I was there with a small market stall; then I did not manage to get there for a while. This year, I'm planning to go there with a little basket of goods for sale and take a walk around the encampment on Friday and Saturday.

And then, very soon, our Textile Forum will take place. Amazing how time flies by!

Just in time for the Forum, the first Forum Proceedings will come out. In case you are interested in the book (details here), I am planning to carry it in my online shop. If you want to make sure that you will get one without ordering it from Oxbow directly, just drop me a note :)

One of the things I love about archaeology, and especially experimental archaeology, is how it keeps you on your toes and gets you to suddenly learn stuff about things you never tended to think about before.

As in - did you know that beeswax actually starts to melt at around 40°C, not the 60+ that are usually stated as its melting point? And that the temperature depends not only on the species of the bees and maybe their location, but also on who made the wax and how old it is? I learned about that yesterday. I was not as successful in finding out the melting point of natural pinus pinea resin, though (if you should have a helpful hint, I'd love to have it).

Today, I am trying to find out about the temperatures used in traditional batik techniques. Looks like they dye above the onset of melting of beeswax... and tomorrow, if everything goes according to plan, I will finish the thinking and planning and write down a plan to follow for the actual testing. There's a few sticky points still to solve - how to get the mixture out of the cloth again, how to make sure that everything is dyed at the same temperature but with no bad side effects from stuff touching, how to ensure an uniform temperature for the mixture application, and some more pesky details like that.

And now... on to more hunting of .pdfs, and finding out about melting points and possible sources and temperatures and processes. 

(For those of you who have not guessed it yet: It's all about the resist dye technique test runs at the Textile Forum.)

As you might know, the Textile Forum is a very experiment-friendly place. Last year, we had a little dyeing experiment looking at the influences of different metal kettles (simulated by metal plates in neutral pots) on dyeing, inspired by the question why the Romans in Pompeii had lead dye vats. (You can see pictures of the experiment, the dyed samples, and a poster of the preliminary results on the Forum's archive page, here.)

The experiment is now getting an add-on - a second test run, only with birch leaves as dye (due to time restrictions), but with the metal additions split between the mordanting only and the dyeing only. If all goes according to plan, it will be possible to see if there is more influence from the metal in the mordanting process or the dyeing process.

I have been preparing for this quite a bit already - the alum is ordered, the 80 m skeins are wound and tied off so they won't go knotty, and today will see my finishing off the outline and experiment plan. It takes a while to go through all this and type out, bit by bit and step for step, what is to do. But yay for a detailed plan like that - it's so helpful to have a sheet with the single steps all written out, and tables to put the measured values. Also helps a lot in making sure you don't forget to take a measurement, or a photograph.

And week after next will see the actual run of the experiment. I'm really looking forward to this!

The event is based on an international, interdisciplinary and intercultural format meant to spark a lively and informative dialogue among speakers and participants from a variety of backgrounds, professions and points of view. The three day event will not only feature an impressive selection of high profile presenters, but also all inclusive behind-the-scenes visits and excursions to exclusive places and sites pertinent to the interests of all who attend.

They are looking for papers from all kinds of backgrounds,  and the CfP is open until August 22 2013. Technically, there is a website, but there is no info whatsoever there apart from three rather unrelated links; so if you are interested, it's probably best to contact info(at)costume-textile.com directly.

The international digital heritage congress will take place from October 28 to November 1, 2013, in Marseille, France. More info, as usual and expected, on their website.

And finally, don't forget about the European Textile Forum - we still have some very few spaces left!